


a ghost rested in my bed

by mollivanders



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Character Death, Depression, F/M, Gen, Psychological Horror, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:39:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Halloween Haven tale.</p><p>”We’re not done, Duke,” the voice whispers in his ear, her hand cool on his shoulder. He shudders as Audrey shuts his eyes.</p><p>The second time he wakes, it’s with a purpose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a ghost rested in my bed

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: a ghost rested in my bed**  
>  Fandom: Haven  
> Rating: PG  
> Characters: Duke/Audrey  
> Author's Note: A ghoulish Halloween tale for Audrey and Duke. Warnings for character death, allusions to depression and suicide. Word Count - 1,231  
> Disclaimer: I don't own the show or the characters.

She was supposed to have forty-six days. Forty-six precious days to plan, to prepare, to fight her fate.

(Maybe that’s why nobody saw it coming.)

Not even Audrey Parker.

+

They lay her to rest in the cemetery, buried in sight of the ocean and police station. It’ll be a nice view for the police chief, and for the one after that, and the one after that. Duke leaves Nathan by her grave, drinking himself to a slow death.

(Like father, like son.)

Duke heads back to the _Cape Rouge_ intending to do the same, but alone and chilled by the early winter weather, he feels something at his back. Something more than the fog and the quiet lapping of the waves against the dock, something –

(Something Audrey would have understood).

In the belly of the _Rouge_ , Duke scrubs at his dirty hands and drinks himself into a restless, angry sleep.

He dreams.

(Her eyes, open to the last. Her body, warm in his arms and Nathan screaming in his ear. Damning, nightmare dreams, and a memory telling him he’s not done.)

Duke wakes in a sweat, panting and hung over, and when he wipes the sleep from his eyes he swears he sees a figure in the corner.

“How am I not done?” he asks, his mind still lost at sea, and the empty bottle at his bedside clatters to the floor. The Troubles are over, for now, until the next doppelganger. Maybe that woman won’t be shot in the back by a serial killer the cops in this town couldn’t find, couldn’t stop. That the Guard wouldn’t stop.

”We’re not done, Duke,” the voice whispers in his ear, her hand cool on his shoulder. He shudders as Audrey shuts his eyes.

The second time he wakes, it’s with a purpose.

+

He can feel Audrey at his back, in his bones, watching his every move and pressing him forward. _Not finished_ , she whispers in his dreams, leaves him chilled and hollow and full of everything he never wanted for her. Days bleed into weeks, and weeks into months that Duke doesn’t count.

He said he would help her, said he would do anything for her, and only now does he understand the cost.

(A life for a life.)

“You’ve got to let her go,” Dave tells him one night and Duke grins, a death mask that doesn’t reach his eyes. It makes the other man pull back, an old fear in his old body, and Duke hears himself chuckle.

“You would know,” he says, and heads back to the _Rouge_ certain and desperate. When he stumbles on the road, he finds himself alone - calls out her name.

“I’m not enough, Parker,” he pleads of the darkness and hears it chuckle at his joke.

(He is all the darkness wants.)

+

It takes him six months, but Duke finds a woman who claims to be a witch, or what passes for one in this town. One whose Trouble didn’t die with Audrey.

“Bring back the Rev,” he says, pressing bills in her hand, but once summoned, the Rev looks broken and weak, as though death does not suit him. Before Duke even tries to speak, the reverend spits on him.

“Your work is done, boy,” the reverend growls, but Duke grabs at his arm and holds him fast. “Tell me what I have to do,” he demands, and when the cold, hard reverend shakes his head, Duke brings his mad eyes close to the Rev's. “She said I'm not done,” he explains, and the Rev bows his head.

“She’s just waiting for you, Crocker,” he says, then slips through Duke’s fingers like water. Before he's gone completely, Duke hears an echo in his head, a prayer from schoolboy days. _“Per istam sanctan unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid...”_

+

He dreams more, now that his reality is soaked with ash and fear. Sleeps just to see her, trace her face with his eyes and ask why - why - why. 

“Did I die with you? Did I never wake up?” he asks that night, and Audrey rolls her eyes. “I think I’m going crazy,” he whispers, and the empty room sighs.

“Get over yourself, Duke,” she says sadly.

(He's trying. Doesn't she know he's trying?)

+

It’s the only solution, he’s sure of this now. He told Audrey he wouldn't give into his fate and he figures there’s a caveat for clauses like this. Clauses that are more like escape hatches, for this town and from this town. Clauses that almost nobody remembered; a second way out that only Duke’s stupid enough to try.

(Desperate enough to try.)

She stays with him, every night, with her unfinished business racing against his. Half-drunk and half-starved, he feels her lie next to him, feels her curl their hands together and watch him watch her. She almost seems human, but for the blue tint to her cheeks and the blood on her chest.

“You don’t have to do this,” she murmurs, her breath foggy and damp. It sends a chill down his spine and he shivers, shifts closer to her from instinct. “I’ll go away eventually,” she adds and Duke chuckles, kisses her knuckles and shuts his eyes.

“No you won’t,” he replies.

(He is the darkness now.)

+

It’s easy enough to do, for a man who always planned to live. He marches with his back to the sea, up to the steps of the old church his family founded, and steps across the threshold.

(Nothing more is required. Nothing more is asked.)

They find him in the foyer, his corpse bloody and torn, and Duke’s surprised to see regret in Nathan’s eyes. The knife goes in evidence and Duke’s note goes in the chief's hand, and finally, Duke lets himself rest.

_Don’t follow me._

(Nathan won’t.)

“They won’t understand,” Audrey says, her hand latched safely with his, and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Not for twenty-seven years at least.”

He’s silent, piecing together all the parts, and he grips her hand tight. It’s easier to see how they all fit together, now that he's gone through the looking glass.

“Forty-six days,” he says quietly as they cart his body away, the last gleam of sunlight fading from the church. “It lasted a bit longer than that.” He pauses, a faint sense of grief filling his heart. “Hope it was worth it.”

“It was to me, Duke,” Audrey says solemnly and when he looks at her, he sees her whole, warm and alive. A life for a life. “To this town.”

“I didn’t do it for them,” he bites and Audrey chuckles. What was still warm in his body fades away, makes her gleam in the stolen light.

“It was you,” he whispers. “Only you?” he asks. She stands on tiptoe to hum in his ear, “Always.” The question sits on his lips, the betrayal weighing down his every shortened breath, but he doesn’t have to ask. “You had a choice,” she whispers. “You always had a choice, with me.”

He wants to say he didn’t – love isn’t a choice – but then she takes his other hand, and he relents.

(She really needs to work on her thank yous.)

“Worth it,” he echoes and the ghost of Audrey Parker mirrors his smirk.

(The darkness claims them both.)

_Finis_


End file.
